by Terry Madden
She took Talan’s proffered arm, and they started up the path to the gate of the hive, his guards falling in behind them. “You must be weary.”
She would play the game; say what was anticipated, for Pyrs would surely wonder. She asked, “Does your solás remain on the ship?”
“No,” Talan said. “The green gods, fickle as you well know, for you have suffered at their hands, Lyleth…” As he rambled, he repeatedly glanced over his shoulder as if someone fed him the words and he merely spoke them. “The green gods, blind and deaf to my supplications, saw fit to take her from me in Sandkaldr. And so you know the reason for my visit, it’s not purely out of affection.”
Certainly not. She caught him measuring her response and made certain not to give him any.
**
The Isle of Glass was the safe haven Lyleth had needed to birth her child in peace and live free of the questioning eye of the world. Yet there was a restlessness in her, a feeling that she had neglected an important part of her destiny as she worked at the simple act of teaching others to trust in gods she had long since spurned. They must see the falseness in her. Breaca and Gwion surely saw it. She had no business leading the hive, no business pretending at being the chosen of the green gods. She’d been collecting their scorn these six years, and now Talan had come to deliver the blow. She just didn’t know what it might be.
The cooks had scurried into action and soon baked salmon and fresh bilberry bread came to table. Ewers of mead replaced the usual ale, yet the druada and their students weren’t their usual boisterous selves.
The hall was a simple structure, a long stone building with a sod roof upon which the druada grew their culinary and medicinal herbs. Half the hall was below ground, and the narrow windows near the rafters looked out at the grass and flowers that hung from the roof. A hearth ran the length of the chamber, cold now that summer had come, and trestle tables lined either side.
Lyleth motioned for one of the young initiates to come to her.
“Sing for us, Ysbal.”
The girl turned pale. “What shall I sing?”
“The Summer Bird.” Lyleth offered.
The girl showed her palms and took the bard’s position and began singing.
“The voice of a god, for gods are what you farm here on this island,” Talan whispered to Lyleth. “Godlings all, ready to step into the world and bring order from chaos, light from darkness, justice from the arms of despair. I’m certain my little cousin sings with such a voice.”
“Your cousin?”
“Your daughter.” That half-smile again. “My uncle left his mark, I understand. The get of a resurrected king… what manner of child she must be? One far beyond the feeble workings of gods, aye, something much more powerful.” He raised his cup of mead, the wildness in his eyes never leaving hers. “Where is the sweet child?”
“I’ve sent her to Drustan’s hive in Cedewain—”
“You lie poorly, Lyleth. This island is not so large. What I fail to understand is why you think I would do her harm. She’s my kin, after all.”
Pyrs, sitting to her right, let his hand fall idly over hers. He squeezed slightly. What was he saying? Her mind was too rattled to feel his thoughts.
Talan said, “Shall I send my men to play hide-and-seek with her?”
Her breath caught. How did he know where she Angharad was?
Lyleth cast about the long tables. Ysbal stopped singing, Gwion had stood and now moved toward the door, his hand on the hilt of a sword that never left his side. The others fell silent. Talan had read Lyleth as surely as she had read him that moment by the cove. Was he a greenwood babe? Or something else entirely?
If Talan’s men went after Angharad, Dylan would put an arrow through as many as possible before letting them take her.
Lyleth finally said, “I shall send Breaca after her, my lord.”
**
Angharad stood before the table with her hands knotted before her, her cheeks red from the hasty return. She had retrieved the basket of mushrooms Lyleth had dropped and held them out to her. “For supper, Mama.”
Talan was on his feet, pacing around Angharad, a hand on her cheek as if he judged a prized lamb.
Lyleth wanted to sweep Angharad into her arms and flee, take ship and sail for Cadurques, lose themselves in the cities of the south. But it was too late for that. She should have left this place years earlier.
The child stood straight as if she prepared a recitation.
He mused, “She hasn’t the look of my uncle, does she?”
“Fiach’s looks—”
“Oh, no, no, let’s not use that story, Lyleth. I can’t imagine that while he had you bound to Nechtan’s rotting flesh, he took pleasure with you. Fiach is known for savoring his women, but that’s beyond my imagining. Far, far beyond.”
Angharad’s green eyes met Lyleth’s, her face a worried pout.
The druada were quietly ushering their students from the hall, casting worried glances over their shoulders as they left.
Talan knelt beside Angharad. “You’d like to serve the king, would you not, little cousin?”
Lyleth knew that Talan could have had Angharad killed quietly. But she also knew he had fathered children of his own on two brides in six years, the first having died in childbirth. His children, however, were not sired by a king who had died and lived again, nor were they born of the union between a king and his solás.
It was Angharad who circled Talan now as he knelt there on the flagstones. “If you know the names of the seven sisters, I shall serve you.”
“Angharad.” Lyleth’s voice was ragged and sharp. “This is not a game, child.”
“Let the girl speak,” Talan said. “We all like games.” He looked back at Angharad and began reciting. “Afanen, Alon, Aislin, Aifric, Anwen, Andraste and little Ceinwen, fathered as she was by another star.” He smiled, and Angharad returned it.
Talan stood. “I shall take Angharad as my solás.”
So that was what he’d come for. Not to kill her, but to bind her to him. Lyleth was on her knees, her arms around her daughter. “But she is not of age—”
“There is no proper age for one such as she.” Talan placed a cold palm on Lyleth’s cheek. “I’ll care for her as my own, for she is my kin.”
“My lord, her training has but begun. Think of the druí she will become.”
“She far outshines any druí living right now. And what she becomes will be shaped by her lord king and loving cousin.”
Angharad cupped her hand to whisper in Lyleth’s ear, her words coming warm and moist. “I shall go with him. The gods wish it.”
Lyleth looked up to meet the void behind Talan’s eyes. Who was this man? Where had he learned his cunning? Certainly not from the green gods.
“The gods will it,” he echoed.
Whose gods?
**
“Talan would never harm Nechtan’s child,” Pyrs whispered to Lyleth. She had found him asleep in the corner of the hall, his men snoring beside him as tightly packed as sausages. He had followed her into a night blistered with stars.
“She is a threat to him,” Lyleth said. “Pyrs, Nechtan did not die at the hands of an ice-born raider. It was Talan’s spear.”
“Talan?”
Even in the dim glow of a distant torch, she could see Pyrs’ disbelief.
She turned to go, saying, “Go back to sleep, coward. Nechtan had no friend but me.”
He caught her arm. “Talan has brought untold wealth to the Five Quarters, Lyleth. Our shores are unassailable. We know a true and prosperous peace for the first time in centuries. And you would weep for the ice-born who raped our women and stole our children?”
“I weep for no one. Tell me, Pyrs… how did Maygan die? Was it in battle as Talan claims?”
He turned away from her, hands on his hips and staring into darkness.
“You won’t answer because you know he killed her,” she said. “He let me see it all when he held my
hands. He doesn’t care that I know, in fact, he uses it as a threat. He’ll do the same to Angharad if she’s not to his liking. And yet, you serve this man. I hope your wealth is worth it.”
She left Pyrs standing in the dark, but once she reached her own quarters, she stood in the doorway and listened to the rhythmic breathing of her sleeping child. Then she climbed into the bed and held her close.
Angharad turned and roused, whispering, “Where were you, mama?”
“Looking at the stars. Go back to sleep.”
**
In the cove, the sea mist warmed with morning. Lyleth watched it swallow Talan’s ships and leave nothing behind but their wakes. Dylan and Elowen had been permitted to go with them, to act as servants to the child. At least Angharad would have someone she knew watching out for her.
As Breaca’s arm closed around hers to lead her up the path, Lyleth looked down at the scuffled black sand where the dories had launched. There at her feet was a child’s scribble. Angharad had scratched into the sand a caricature of the water horse. It had a smile on its face
Chapter 3
Dish rang Bronwyn and told her that he would be late, he and Connor had some catching up to do. Waiting in the car while Connor moved some things in Merryn’s cottage so the wheelchair could move easily, he wiped at the fog inside the car window but could see only the yellow glow of the porch lamp. The darkness was complete, and the rain now fell in earnest. Dish couldn’t understand how Connor’s lengthy visit at Merryn’s place had escaped Bronwyn. Surely Mr. Peavey, the old gaffer who managed Merryn’s sheep, would bring it to her attention. There were bills to pay and mail to fetch. Who was seeing to it all? Connor?
Dish would move into Merryn’s cottage tomorrow and tell Bronwyn that Connor had agreed to stay on and help him out with Merryn’s care. He had failed to tell Connor about the plan as yet. Dish had taken paperwork to fill out, requesting Merryn’s release to home care and hospice. The sooner the better.
A good ten minutes had passed before Connor fetched him. The car door sounded like it would fall off the hinges and the seat of his wheelchair was soaking from the ride in the bed of the lorry. Connor had to bump the wheelchair up the three steps to the front door. The small drawing room of Merryn’s cottage was the only room big enough for a hospital bed and all the equipment.
“Tomorrow we’ll move the sofa and the cabinet.” Dish pointed at the furniture. “The sooner we have her home, the better.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard,” Connor said, parking Dish in the middle of the room. “I can store some of her things in the shed.”
Connor gathered up a sketch pad from the tea cart and tucked it under his arm. It wasn’t so much the action as his body language. He was definitely hiding something.
“Light up the heater, if you please, Connor.” In his wet clothes, Dish was cold to the bone.
Connor flicked the switch, and the fake coals in the fake hearth glowed and danced with simulated fire. But heat came out, and Dish warmed his hands.
“You’ve been here longer than a few days, haven’t you?”
Connor was stuffing the sketchpad into a backpack in the corner. “Yes.” That was it. Just, yes.
“Right. Well, I know Merryn keeps a supply of whisky hidden in the cupboard beside the stove. How about you fetch us some?”
No discussion, Connor just set to the task in the kitchen. Dish could hear him fishing for ice in the freezer, so he rolled over to the backpack, pulled at the zipper and took a peek inside. One sketchpad with pages warped from exposure to water and a Tupperware cube filled with round brown clods of some kind, all of different size. He zipped it closed and turned his chair as Connor arrived with two mismatched glasses of whisky, at least two fingers and then some.
Dish lifted his glass. “To Merryn.”
“To Merryn.”
Connor settled on the sofa, his eyes flitting around the room as if he checked for evidence. Evidence of what?
“What is it you’ve been doing here all summer and the summers before?”
“Merryn taught me Welsh and some Cornish. And I’ve been sketching.”
“Sketching what?”
“Stones, actually. Carved stones, standing stones, Pictish stones. Did you know some of the motifs in the Anglo-Saxon churches are really Celtic in origin?”
“Yes.” Dish took a long swallow of whisky. What did Connor think Dish had studied all those years? “Sheela na gig, the green man. This is all a line of rubbish, Connor.”
“You could have come, too. You have summers off.”
“You’re after the well.”
“No. It was clear six years ago that the well would be opened by others, those chosen to do so, as you’ve pointed out to me.” Connor sipped his whisky. “You know what the runes say as well as me. ‘Cleave star and stone, Child of Death—’”
“Then you’re after Merryn’s old age pension.”
Connor gave an insulted laugh, pushed a stray lock of his neo-hippy hair from his face. “You really think so little of me?”
“I’m not sure what to think anymore.”
“Look at you, Dish. You’ve locked yourself away in that school, delivering lectures to pimply kids who’d rather be on Instagram than listening to you drone on about Chaucer and Shakespeare. Then you roll back to your room, lock the door until the next day, feeling sorry for yourself, dreaming of that other world, of Lyleth and the sound of the light there, of your kingdom, and the unfinished business of every ghost. Get over it, Dish. This is our world. Dead or not, we are here.”
If only he could get out of this sodding wheelchair, he’d beat the living crap out of Connor. But all he could do was take Connor’s wrist in a death grip, spilling his whisky on his lap.
“I shall care for Merryn myself,” Dish said through clenched teeth. “I understand there’s an inexpensive hostel in the village, if you insist on staying.”
With a contemptuous little grin, Connor sucked at his lip and nodded, “As you wish, my lord.”
**
Bronwyn moved Dish’s things over in the morning. He would take Merryn’s bedroom, and Merryn would be set up with her medical equipment in the drawing room. Though Connor had moved to the hostel, he was back at the cottage at daybreak to help with preparations for Merryn’s return. Stubborn as ever. Dish exchanged as few words as possible with his student while Connor took it upon himself to build a ramp over the front steps so Dish could get in and out of the cottage.
He rolled his wheelchair out onto the graveled drive and sat. Merryn’s farm hadn’t changed a whit since Dish was a boy. This had been his kingdom then. He knew every pasture, every crumbled ruin, every turn of the brook that ran between here and the Forestry Commission land, furred with a grove of cloned Scotch pine that had been planted by machine. Beside the brook, the low swell of an ancient burial mound sat covered in trees. Dish had fantasized about excavating the site ever since he was a boy and poked holes all over it with a shovel.
A flock of Merryn’s favored Black Welsh Mountain sheep cropped grass near the border of the pine wood, and in the distance, Dish could just make out the sea mist that rolled up the cliffs near Penzance.
The squat cottage of whitewashed limestone looked strange without its thatched roof, the only change Dish could see to the original place. He remembered that Merryn couldn’t find a thatcher she could afford, so she had put up slate shingles instead. What had been a soft, rounded roof was now nearly straight, incongruent with the crooked walls of whitewashed field stone.
The teapot whistled.
Dish started back into the house to find Connor already pouring the water into the pot.
“I got it,” Connor said from the doorway.
“Thank you.”
Perhaps it had been an overreaction to throw Connor out. But Dish felt like the privacy of his family had been compromised, or perhaps it was his own privacy he felt he needed to guard.
That morning, Connor and Mr. Peavey had moved the sofa and
curio cabinet to the shed, leaving enough room in the drawing room for the hospital bed and necessary equipment. Bronwyn assisted, pointlessly rearranging things to make it look more “comforting.” By her demeanor, she hadn’t known anything about Connor’s summer residence at Merryn’s, which could only confirm Dish’s suspicion that she’d been checking in on Merryn far less than she had made it seem.
Dish soaked in the morning sun on the front porch while Bronwyn stormed through the cottage with a vacuum. Connor appeared with a cup of tea and after handing it to Dish, turned to go back to his work. Dish said, “You were headed to art school after graduation, as I recall.”
“I went. For a semester.” Connor leaned against the handrail of the front steps, sipping his own tea. “It was too… structured.”
“How do you make a living? You’re a grown man now.” Dish wondered if his parents still provided for him.
“I spend my summers over here and get a new job every fall. Mindless stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Salesperson at ‘Conspicuous Consumption,’ where everything is forty percent off, every day. Most recently, a bouncer at ‘Club Pit of Despair’ where I mostly busted people for snorting coke or fucking in the toilet, or both at the same time.”
Meeting Connor’s eyes reminded Dish of what he had set out to do once, to save the young man from himself, to invest him in a life worth living. Dish had failed. Merryn may not have.
Dish checked his watch. “Should be here any time now.”
“Close that door,” Bronwyn called from inside. “I don’t want Merryn to be chilled when we get her settled.”
**
Merryn arrived by medical transport. The ramp over the front steps made it easy to wheel the gurney into the cottage. With two medics attending, she was settled into the bed by the window that overlooked the south pasture and the greenwood that had been attempting to reclaim it for a millennium.
“I shall miss it,” she said, a tear welling in her tired eyes. The lullaby whir of the oxygen machine pointed to the silence.
